Nation & World Digest || GOP promises $100 billion in cuts

GOP promises $100 billion in cuts

WASHINGTON

Piling cuts on top of cuts, House Republican leaders outlined an additional $26 billion in spending reductions Thursday in hopes of placating conservatives who rejected an initial draft as too timid.

Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., in charge of drafting the legislation, said he had proposed “deep but manageable cuts in nearly every area of government.”

No details were immediately available, but the move would cut current spending in hundreds of federal programs by about $60 billion, resulting in levels in effect in 2008.

By Republican reckoning, the new measure would reduce spending by $100 billion below Obama’s request for the current fiscal year, a number they had promised to meet in the “Pledge to America,” their manifesto in the 2010 campaign.

The actual cuts from current rates are less because the $100 billion promise assumes Obama budget increases that were never enacted.

Brewer countersues federal government

PHOENIX

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer filed a counter-lawsuit against the federal government Thursday for failing to control the border and enforce immigration laws, and for sticking the state with huge costs for jailing illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Brewer filed the countersuit in the federal government’s legal challenge to Arizona’s new enforcement immigration law. The federal government is seeking to invalidate the law.

“Our border remains a dangerous place,” Brewer said in announcing the countersuit.

Robbie Sherwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, said lawyers with the prosecutors’ office were reviewing the complaint and had no immediate comment.

Suspect killed in standoff at bank

CARY, N.C.

A man who detained several people inside a suburban bank Thursday emerged from the building holding a gun to the head of one of his captives and was shot dead by police after three hours of tense negotiations helped by a hidden hostage who was feeding authorities information.

The gruesome final scene in the quiet suburban town played out live on television during the dinner hour. None of the hostages nor any of the officers involved were injured, authorities said.

“This is absolutely not how we wanted this to end,” Cary Police Chief Pat Bazemore said. “It is a very sad situation that we did end up shooting the suspect.”

Citizens help remove snow

TULSA, Okla.

With Tulsa buried by its snowiest winter on record and few snowplows in sight, an army of citizens has stepped in where the city failed, putting plows on their pickups to clear streets, checking on senior citizens and even lining up behind stalled cars to push them up highway ramps.

The city has been hit by three winter blasts in less than a week, and many streets are still choked with snow. With cleanup efforts moving slowly, if at all, ordinary people took matters into their own hands to help dig out.

Last week, the first blast dumped 14 inches on Tulsa and more than 20 inches on other cities in northeastern Oklahoma.

In the wake of the latest storm, icy temperatures descended on the Plains and parts of the South on Thursday, leaving ranchers and farmers to fret about the welfare of livestock left outside in up to 2 feet of snow.

Associated Press